After months of turmoil surrounding Facebook’s news feed and the ability it has to spread fake or biased news, the company has posted a job listing for a head of news partnerships.
Facebook has been under scrutiny for failing to battle fake news and the job posting states that the social networking company is looking for someone with at least two decades of experience “to lead Global News Partnerships, serving as the company’s leading representative with news organizations worldwide.”
According to Facebook, the goal of news partnerships is to “help publishers and journalists understand how to reach and engage their audiences, and to innovate with new technologies.”
The responsibilities include overseeing the news partnership team, serving as the public face of Facebook in the news ecosystem, creating forums for engagement within the news industry and resolving issues with business partners.
Facebook declined TheWrap’s request for additional comment.
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg recently said she doesn’t “think” the spread of fake news on her social media platform helped Donald Trump win the presidential election.
Speaking last week on NBC’s “Today” show, Sandberg said Facebook has “taken important steps” to prevent the spread of fake news and conspiracy theories. While some Democrats believe the issue helped Trump defeat Hillary Clinton, Sandberg isn’t among them.
“There have been claims that it swayed the election, and we don’t think it swayed the election,” Sandberg said. “But we take that responsibility really seriously. And we’re looking at things, like working with third parties, helping to label false news, doing the things we can do to make it clearer what’s a hoax on Facebook.”
Last month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined his plan to fight the spread of fake news on the platform. Zuckerberg initially downplayed the criticisms that fake news being spread on his social media site could have contributed significantly to swaying the 2016 presidential election, but later made concessions to the contrary.
Made-up news has been such an issue across the media landscape that Media Matters, a liberal media-watchdog organization known for its fixation on Fox News, recently announced that fake news will now be its prime target.